Red Crystal White Gold
by Pinfeathers
Summary: Sarah discovers the repercussions of her actions on the Labyrinth and its king years later. Now she must make things right and save Jareth from her own people. The world is not kind to those it finds different, and science is not gentle in its study.
1. It Could Not Be

**Red Crystal; White Gold**

_Chapter One: It Could Not Be_

The pale hands that clutched so desperately at her could not belong to him. The once slim, long fingered hands, now almost skeletal, couldn't be his. The arms that reached so weakly to grasp against her chest could not belong to him. The tangled strands of light hair that fell across this face, shadowing it, could not have once been the silken feathered locks about his face. The features obscured by the lank, lifeless strands, held an expression that could never be written across his. The eyes pinched shut in such a frightened grimace, drawn closed against the horrors of the world, couldn't open to reveal his mismatched pair. The limp body in her arms was thin to the point of starvation and worryingly light even then. No, this could not be the Goblin King. This could not be Jareth.

Sarah lifted her load carefully higher, pressing it protectively closer to herself. She was simply horrified by the state he was in. Even when he had been her enemy, she would never have wished such a thing upon him, nor upon anyone. Tears pricked around her eyes as she looked down at him. He had turned in her arms, pressing the top of his head against her body, like a child seeking comfort. She carried him down yet another long hallway, so much like all the others that filled this cold complex. Locked doors along tunnels with linoleum tiled floors and florescent bulb lined ceilings. Her steps echoed hollowly off the blank surfaces. It was like being in a labyrinth, she mused coldly. A labyrinth like the one she had run in the Underground, but far more terrible. In the Underground she had been frightened for Toby, alarmed by some of the denizens, but there was so much life and magic there. She had made friends in that labyrinth and despite the apparent perils she had faced, Sarah had developed a sneaking suspicion that she had never been in any real danger. Here though, it was stark and cold, the sun did not reach within these walls and there was no magic. She had no friends here and she knew that anyone she would meet would be a threat.

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No matter what the Goblin King had put her through, she had a kind of grudging respect for him. She had wanted nothing more than to defeat him when he had taken Toby from her, resenting him as he dangled the baby's fate before her like a carrot in front of a donkey. Now that she was older though, she'd come to realize how much more she valued her half-brother thanks to the experience. She had taken a summer course on Celtic mythology during high school a few years after her adventure in the labyrinth. In her class she had learned about many mythical races, several of which she saw parallels to in the Labyrinth. Although many of the creatures of the Underground seemed to be the creatures of legend she read about and could identify readily enough as a child, there were a few that she didn't recognize. The Goblin King himself had been one such creature. At the time she had never heard a creature like him, so similar to a human yet so different. Despite his title, he clearly wasn't a goblin. She might have thought of him as a fairy, but she'd met those right off and been set straight. He might have been an elf, but that didn't quite seem to fit either. For years she wondered what sort of creature the Goblin King actually was, until she took that class. One of the first things the class had discussed was the variation of mythical creatures between cultures, and specifically the creatures peculiar to the Celts.

One of the most important races amongst the sidhe, or Celtic faeries, was the fae. They closely resembled fairies or demi-fae as they were sometimes called, but were much larger and generally lacked the pixie wings. Although the details varied somewhat from legend to legend, the fae were known to hold powerful magic and were generally the ruling class among the sidhe. They were known to be fickle and tricky creatures that loved and made sport of mischief, playing games and tricks of all sorts, both benign and cruel. In many legends the fae had the ability to shape shift, particularly into animal forms, often each having one special or preferred form sometimes referred to as a heart beast. When Sarah learned about fae shape shifting, her thoughts turned to a certain goblin king of the Underground and his transformation from a pale barn owl to a man when she had called him. If he was in fact fae as she suspected, was that his heart beast? Wasn't that what he had become again when she defeated him on the thirteenth chime, a white owl whirling out of her house and into flying off into the night? The more she learned about the fae, the more the description seemed to fit. With her new understanding of what the Goblin King actually might be, her view of him changed fundamentally. She had thought him an inhuman monster for stealing away children, but this seemed to be a fairly common and acceptable practice amongst the fae. One of the more important life lessons that Sarah had learned as she matured was not to be so quick to judge others, especially other cultures. Someone couldn't help where they'd been born or how they'd been raised. How could she judge a fae, when he wasn't even from the same race, when she knew little or nothing about his people? It wasn't that she necessarily forgave him, more that she was reserving judgment until she understood. The Labyrinth had taught her not to take things for granted; it had just taken her a bit longer to apply the Labyrinth's teachings to its king. Perhaps he wasn't her enemy after all.

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She wanted to break down and cry; she wanted to scream at the gods and demand to know how they could let this happen. Atrocities happen all over the world, every hour of every day, unknown to most of the world but happening none the less. Media coverage eventually leaks many of them to the developed world, shocking and disgusting millions. Sarah knew of many such horrors, such thing that people wondered how their supposedly benevolent gods could allow them, so many prayers unanswered. Somehow though, this left all the others behind. For her this was so much worse, worse probably then if he were simply dead somewhere. Holding him in her arms and seeing how he had fallen made it that much worse. No god could allow such a thing; she would not allow such a thing, it was beyond imagination. The broken creature she was rescuing could not be the Goblin King… And yet, it was.

* * *

A/N: There are the first chapter guys! I've been getting requests to put up the fan fic that's linked to one of my pictures on deviant ART. I couldn't come up with a really killer name at the time I posted it, so it was named "When the world falls down" clichéd I know... Anyway, I'm changing the name to be the same as this fic, (I just spent an hour or so trying to find something that would fit and this was about as good as I could come up with.) If you've seen the picture, you'll have some idea what the title is referring to. The picture wasn't necessarily the conception for this fic so much as a representation of my whole idea of what must have happened after the end of the movie, it was meant to be symbolic in a very in your face way. For anyone who hasn't seen the picture, it features a cracked crystal sitting in a pool of blood that is dripping down one of the stairs of the Escher room. Inside the crystal is an image of the Labyrinth and the Goblin City, crumbling and covered by dark clouds and rain.

*This is going to be major Jareth torture! To be perfectly honest I like to see normally untouchable characters taken down a peg, and by taken down a peg I mean laying bleeding on the floor(erm, yeah… I think you can expect a lot of that in this fic). I've discovered something of a sadistic streak in myself…

I'm not sure how far this is going to go, but I feel like guilt tripping Sarah, so expect a lot of that too. (Torture is no fun without someone to be horrified by it! :) ) I've also been reading up on Celtic mythology and I'm looking forward to playing with the weaknesses of fairytale creatures in the modern world. One of the things that has always made me wonder is if the fae are supposed to be so hyper sensitive to iron that proximity y weakens them and direct contact it burns their skin in a lot of fics, how can they eat with silverware ('cuz it's all stainless steel folks, and that's iron!) ? How can they ride in cars, how can they sleep in inner spring mattresses, how can they do anything?! I'm not entirely sure where I want to go with this fic, 'cuz I have several in the works, but I'm so going there!

Please drop me a review to let me know what you think. I'd love any suggestions you'd care to give. Nitpicky corrections are as always welcome. There are a few things I've left as fragments on purpose, but if anyone would like to suggest a correction for grammar, spelling, anything at all, I'll be happy to fix or take it into consideration! ^^

-Pinfeathers


	2. What No One Knew

Red Crystal; White Gold

_**Chapter Two: What No One Knew**_

What Sarah did not know, in fact, what no one knew, was precisely what had happened in the Underground after Sarah had been sent home. The goblins in the city had felt the pulse of magic from the castle and thought it rather strange, but had thought little of it. The residents of the Goblin City were not familiar with the workings of magic and did not fathom what the unusual pulse meant. Most just assumed that it was just their whimful king playing with a bit more magic than usual, and the few who gave it any at all figured it must have had something to do with the runner in the castle. This last runner had certainly been unusual, and they could not remember a time when their king had been so interested in a runner. Normally he would just sit in his throne and watch they mayhem his subjects caused, purely as usual. From time to time he would check up on the runners with one of his crystals, pulled from the air, offered a brief glance and then thrown casually away to disappear before they could shatter amongst the goblin horde. Occasionally he would visit them in person, intimidating them at opportune moments, and inspiring just the amount of terror appropriate to their situation. Most humans really just needed the begeberz scarred out of them before they could begin to learn their lesson…

While most runners were only graced by one or maybe two visits, he went and spoke with Sarah no less than four times, after his initial appearance to claim the baby. Five in fact if you counted the peach dream he had given her, but he hadn't actually _spoken_ that time, but still… From the moment she had spoken the words, she had hardly been out of His Majesty's sight. He had watched her almost constantly with his crystals, only taking his eyes off her progress to attend to her baby brother. Although he had initially been rather bored with her, she had gained his attention quickly in her run, especially after her request of the "Helping Hands" to send her down when she could have chosen up. Only a few runners had ever chosen down. Most, who chose up, found themselves thrown back to near the beginning of that section of the labyrinth. Instead, Sarah had been dropped into an oubliette. The oubliette might have been the end of her run, but he had decided to send Hoggle to fetch her out, he could be generous after all. He went to see her himself shortly after, asking her "and how are you enjoying my labyrinth?" He had been outraged at her flippant response, his pride stung. He set the cleaners on her to put her in her place. Although the tunnels had seemed a horrible place that Sarah was glad to get out of, she did not perhaps realize it at the time, but those tunnels had led her straight and true, considerably farther into the labyrinth, closer to the castle. The hidden tunnels below the Labyrinth were an interlocking web and a maze all their own, but they afforded the straightest routes from point to point all over the kingdom. Sarah was beginning to learn not to take so much for granted, slowly for the simplest parts of the Labyrinth; she none the less wound a remarkably direct path towards the castle. Something about this girl was special and the whole kingdom was quickly realizing it, the very Labyrinth opening the way before her where it would have been shut to others. They did not know why because it was _what no one knew_ that made all the difference.

With the vibrations of the thirteenth chime in the underground, the castle had lurched. What remained of the Escher room and the magic holding it together crumbled, crashing down upon itself with the rediscovered force of gravity, and the Goblin King fell with it. Sarah had watched him begin to fall as his cloak fell between them, distracting her even as he plunged over a crumbling edge. The white owl that had witnessed Sarah's return home flew away from her and out into the starlit night. The owl was part of him, part of his magic, his consciousness and his soul, sent with her to guide her safely back to her world. The owl flew off into the night, seeking its return to the underground, but it found the way blocked. The pulse of magic that was felt around the kingdom, that brought the Escher room to dust and rubble, was her words. Her words spoken with such conviction that they broke his hold on her. Her words that tore him and his castle asunder. Her words that bound him to her. If he had no power over her, then the only thing he could be to her was her slave. Her words wove the magic about themselves and attacked him. They ripped him apart and forced him into servitude. He had already been bound by her wishes, now she owned him in every way. Sarah could have called upon him, commanded anything of him, and he would have had no choice to obey; But she did not know of the power she held over him. Without a call he was left broken and lost, split between two realms. More than an owl but less than a man, he was left helpless.

Sarah had been sent home on the thirteenth chime, returned to her toys and her costumes and left playing with the subjects of the Labyrinth who joined her in her room. Her invitation had been sent to all of them, "I need you, all of you," she had said, and all who could comfortably fit in the room were drawn to her through her mirror. All those she had met, and many she had seen merely seen during her journey, as either friend or foe, joined her in celebrating her victory. Yet there was one who was notably absent from their numbers, one whom Sarah had not truly meant to invite, but had unknowingly extended an invitation to none the less."All of you," was open to interpretation, of course, and there was one creature that dwelled within the Labyrinth's borders that Sarah would have expected to take full advantage of the fact. The Goblin King seemed to like to mince words, and she would have imagined he'd take any opportunity to use her words against her once again. It took Sarah about forty-five minutes, with the constant nagging sensation that she had forgotten something important, to realize what she had accidentally done.

As her initial panic began to wear off and her frantic glance about the room and out the window, searching for any sign of the Goblin King or the White Owl, subsided to wary glances cast occasionally around the room; something occurred to Sarah. Obviously he wasn't there, evidenced by the creatures still partying all around her, completely oblivious to her distress. Surely he would have heard her invitation, wouldn't he? She thought on it for a moment and decided that he must have been able to hear it, after all, the others had heard her and besides, he had certainly heard her when she wished Toby away… With that settled she moved on with her thinking. If he had heard her, where was he then? Clearly he had not come, and she felt a surprising pang in her chest at the thought, the knowledge that he did not wish to be near her. Then again, she had just defeated him, but then she thought that he would have at least used the invitation as an excuse to appear and terrorize her, his subjects at least… Yes, she was sure he would have, it was certainly what he would have done. She was still left with one lingering quandary: Where was the Goblin King and why had he not come?

Sarah was careful not to make anymore wishes, having learned her lesson after the last one had been granted. She had no idea of the power she held over the Goblin King. She had sent her friends home after the brief party, not wanting her father, or worse her _stepmother_, to hear the racket and walk in on them. She called them often for a long time and they always came, entertaining her in boredom, comforting her in times of sadness. When she asked them how things were back in the Underground they were reluctant to tell her at first, insisting that her life was much more interesting, but with prodding they would tell her of their more adventurous or hilarious exploits of the weeks or years past. They were hesitant to speak of the goblins, and never spoke of the goings on at the castle she noticed as the years slowly went by, filled with light hearted banter and strong friendship. On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, some three and a half years later, she called them to her in her room while her parents were both our running evening errands. They talked as usual until Sarah finally asked the question that had been nagging at the back of her mind for years. She had never asked them about what she had realized at the party, never asked them why the Goblin King had not come. They avoided him in conversation most of the time, and never spoke his name, hardly his title even. She had wondered, been frightened that he would show up at any moment if she so much as thought his name, for a time. On the night that she had returned and held her party, she had realized her mistake in wording the invitation to her guests, she had braced for his arrival, for his cruel jibes, his vengeful wrath, but she got nothing. No flicker, no indication that he had heard her, and she was sure that he would have, so sure… She would ask now, she would have the answer to the last of her childhood questions before she turned eighteen.

"Hoggle, how are things in the Underground, how are the Goblins…How is the king?" Sarah asked softly, tentatively. She was unsure what she expected exactly, a report of the number of Goblins Jareth had kicked (they'd mentioned once that he often did this) so far this week? She felt somewhat silly asking after him, but her resolve held firm, she would ask, and then she could put it all behind her.

"Well, er…" Hoggle began slowly before Didymus interrupted him.

"Thing have been most odd indeed, my Lady!" Didymus put in boldly, dutifully reporting to "his Lady" even though the question had not been put directly to him. The Goblins were "running somewhat amuck" the knight told her, and the kingdom was in discord without its king to rule it.

"But where _is_ the Goblin King then?" Sarah demanded.

"We's aint really sure," Hoggle answered, looking nervously at his feet as he shifted back and forth between them.

"Well why not?" she prodded.

"Not a soul's seen him since we stormed the castle, and the Goblins 'av got it in their heads somehow that somen'll bog 'em if they disturb nothin' in there, or somethin'…" Hoggle trailed off grumbling.

"They won't go into the castle?" Sarah asked, surprised.

"Oh they'll go in alright; the main ale store was in the castle cellars. They're just quieter about it that usual, and they won't go near the stair room. No one's dared to more'n peek in there since it collapsed. Darn near took the whole castle wit' it too, it did!"

"It collapsed?" Sarah whispered, gazing wide-eyed at her friends.

"Well, yeah… On the thirteenth chime, when you said what you did…" Hoggle supplied, making a slight gesture somehow seeming like he was throwing something and swatting it away at the same time. It reminded Sarah oddly of the way the Goblin King had thrown away the crystal he had been offering her.

"I didn't know… I remember it breaking apart in the end, but it was just hanging there… I guess it did fall apart as I left…" she pondered. Wait a moment… fell…fall? The Goblin King had fallen too, hadn't he? She'd almost forgotten; she'd been so caught up in her victory, so determined to push him out of her life. His cloak had fluttered to the floor before her as the stone beyond it suddenly crumbled away. She had lost sight of him in the flurry of wind and silk and feathers that blocked her view of the falling stone all around her. Next thing she knew, a white owl was swooping in loops about her with the rapidly fading gale. She was home again, standing in her living room she realized just as the last winds blew open the front door and carried the owl out into the night. Her concern for Toby distracted her immediately and she had run straight up the stairs to check on him. Upon finding him safe and sleeping in his crib, she had gone back to her own room. By then she had already forgotten the owl that had flown out the door and she was swept up by the thrill of celebrating with her friends.

About a month later she had glimpsed the form of an owl through the trees while she was taking a bag of trash out to the can kept against the fence in the backyard. Her heart had skipped a beat before kicking into overdrive and she had dropped the bag in shock. She had stood frozen, watching it swoop silently away until it disappeared beyond the trees that blocked the view of the neighbors' property. She had come to her senses quickly and reassured herself that it was just a normal owl, but even still, the distinctive markings of a pale barn owl had been clearly visible in the moonlight that night, just as they had been during the storm only a month prior.

"None of them have even looked for him, in three and a half _years_?" Sarah asked incredulously, a feeling of dread curdling in her gut at the thought of what might have happened to him if he had been trapped there all that time.

"Nope, they's too scared… But Sarah, it aint been near that long for us, and even shorter fer the goblins…" Hoggle trailed off.

"What? How can that be?" Sarah asked, shocked one again. She knew that the last time she had been in the Underground, she had spent at least ten hours (the Goblin King had stolen two or three, but she wasn't quite sure what he had done with them) in the Goblin Kingdom, but only half that time had passed in her World. The Goblin King had said he had re-ordered time before… "Hoggle, how long has it been in the Labyrinth since I rescued Toby?"

"Er about a week and a half n'ear as I can fig'er, but it's been longer fer us, 'cuz we been spending so much time here aboveground, almost four weeks I think. We've hardly spent any time at 'ome, you've called us so often…. Hoggle told her. She thought back to the handful of times that her friends had stayed the night, sleeping in her closet or under her bed. She had wondered about how they never seemed to change in the slightest as the years went by. She had assumed that it was merely the nature of the creatures of the Labyrinth. Now she wasn't sure, it made sense if it had only been a few weeks.

"Why is time so off between the worlds?" Sarah asked.

"Mostly it's always been like that, s'far as we can tell. But it was never so much before. We think it's been getting steadily worse too, judging at the rate you're growin'." Sarah listened intently, frowning worriedly, realizing what that meant.

"Time in the Underground is slowing down, and slowing down dramatically… But why?"

"Surely tis the magic my lady," Didymus explained. "The king has always kept it in check. He is tied to the Labyrinth and to the land. The king holds power over everything in his realm, from the shape of the Labyrinth to the very flow of time itself. His majesty has always had a gift for time as I have heard, even before he took the Goblin throne.

"But you said that no one's…seen-Oh… Oh dear." Sarah trailed off one hand lifted to press against her mouth, the other white knuckled on the edge of the bed beside her. "He- He's not- He can't be…" Tears gathered at the corners of her eves and she turned away from her friends. Ludo made a low moaning sound, seeing Sarah in distress.

"Oh my lady, do not cry! The king is not lost to us yet! If his highness had already perished, time would have done something drastic, perhaps stopped it's passing altogether; Surely something horrible. On my honor as a knight of the kingdom, he still lives!" Didymus declared, thrusting his lance into the air to punctuate his last sentence. Sarah couldn't help the hint of a smile that tugged at her lips, her spirits lifted marginally by the little knight's antics. She wiped away the moisture rimming her deep green eyes, through some of the crystal droplets still clung to her dark lashes.

"Thank you Didymus," she said softly. There was a pause as she gathered herself, and when she spoke again, her voice held the strength and determination that had come to define Sarah Williams. "What can we do about it?" Her friends looked at her, somewhat surprised, although they should not have been, for this was the woman Sarah had grown into. She had learned to put her stubbornness behind her actions in a highly effective way. Sarah had grown up and her priorities had changed and she had learned to concern herself with the welfare of those around her. She used her steely determination to overcome any obstacle in her path, and no one could deter her once she set her mind to something. Hoggle shifted uncertainly again, and simply smiled happily down at her as usual.

"Er, I aint real sure 'bout the magic," Hoggle shrugged, "you'd have to ask one O' the Fae about that, but I'd 'spect you'd need to go to the source o' the problem, an' in this case,"

"It would seem to be his highness, King Jareth," Didymus interrupted once more, his excitement getting the better of him.

"But then what?" Sarah's brows drew together in consideration.

"Then we must set right that which is wrong and restore the kingdom to its former state!" She smiled grimly once more at Didymus' zest.

"Well, I guess there's only one thing to do then, I'll have to wish him here."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------LOL, I accidently typed "thje Boblin King" instead of "the Goblin King" when I was typing this up from the hand written copy.

Oh my gosh, I did it three or four times after that too! XD

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Okay, so I finally got this next chapter finished today! ^^ It's been quite interesting, especially since I suddenly realized that I'd written some of the same scenes twice, and differently, and then it was all out of sequence… I fixed it though, and that's all that really matters, right? XD

Hope you enjoyed! I'm finally sorting out what actually has to happen for the plot to go the direction I want, so I'm starting from scratch on the third chapter! ^^

As always, nitpicking of grammar and spelling is welcome! (OK, obviously Hoggle's lines are written in dialect… But I suppose if you really want to go there…)

-Pinfeathers


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